NHS officials are shutting growing numbers of birth centres in a “shocking” denial of a woman’s right to have a midwife rather than a doctor oversee their baby’s birth, say campaigners.
Twelve birth centres – midwife-led maternity units – have closed in England since ۲۰۱۹. Birth centres play a key role in ensuring that women can choose whether to have their baby at a unit in a hospital run by doctors, at one where midwives are in charge, or at home.
Six units have shut permanently since Labour came to power in July ۲۰۲۴. Four others have been closed “temporarily” for so long, up to six years, that childbirth groups fear they will never reopen. Two other birth centres closed because the hospitals where they were based have begun to fall apart and will remain out of action for several years until new facilities are built.
Women’s ability to choose where their baby is born is also being increasingly restricted in England and Wales by NHS bodies suspending home birth services for up to ۱۴ months.
The wave of closures and suspensions is occurring because of the NHS-wide shortage of midwives, a falling birthrate, the growing complexity of childbirth and a rise in caesarean sections.
Campaigners say the loss of local childbirth services is denying women their right to choose and forcing them to travel from their home area to give birth.
The Royal College of Midwives said that women’s inability to access midwife-led care on the NHS risks them deciding to pay for private midwifery support or even have a baby at home with no health professional present.
Hazel Williams, the chief executive of Birthrights, said: “Over the past few years we have seen shocking restrictions on women and birthing people’s choices of place of birth, with more and more birth centre closures and restrictions and the option for NHS-supported home birth vastly reduced for many.
“These are not luxury options or nice-to-haves. This is about women and birthing people’s right to choose what happens to their bodies and their birth.”
The six permanent closures during Labour’s time in government have been in Rossendale, east Lancashire; Edgware in north London; Melton Mowbray in Leicestershire; Stafford and Lichfield in Staffordshire; and Pontefract in West Yorkshire. NHS bodies that have decided to close birth centres often stress they do not have enough midwives to staff the service safely.
Tope Medupin, the acting chief executive of the National Childbirth Trust, said: “For women and birthing people the loss of a local service often means longer journeys, higher costs, greater uncertainty and fewer options for care at one of the most important times in their lives.
“Longstanding workforce shortages, crumbling estates and wider pressures on maternity services remain unresolved and women are increasingly expected to travel further for maternity care as a result. That cannot simply become the new normal.”
The Huddersfield birth centre in Yorkshire closed in November ۲۰۲۰ as a temporary measure because of the Covid-۱۹ pandemic. But six years later it has not reopened. “No decision has been made to reopen the service and we are not able to provide a timeframe for any potential reopening,” said the Calderdale and Huddersfield NHS trust which ran it. “Any future decisions will be based on a thorough assessment of clinical safety, workforce sustainability and the needs of local women and families.”
Similarly, Ingleside birth centre in Salford, which opened in ۲۰۱۸, has been shut – again ostensibly as a temporary step – since January ۲۰۲۲.
Midwife-led births at the birth centre in Crowborough, east Sussex, were halted temporarily in October ۲۰۲۵ because staff shortages meant it kept closing at short notice. Maidstone and Tunbridge Wells NHS trust, which runs the centre, said it had completed a review of what it would take to reopen the facility but declined to say what that would involve.
The MP for Sussex Weald, Nusrat Ghani, who is campaigning for it to reopen, said the NHS trust had broken “numerous promises” to review the practicalities of reopening the service.
“We have had thousands of local mums and residents complain at the closure of the service and the trust is ignoring their health needs and choices,” Ghani said. “I am disappointed that the trust doesn’t give weight to the prospect of avoidable complications for mothers who are having to travel for up to ۹۰ minutes to give birth.”
The trust may be continuing to describe the closure as temporary to avoid the formal public consultation it would have to undertake if it were made permanent, Ghani suggested.
Gloucester hospitals trust announced last week that Cheltenham birth centre will reopen in February after being shut since ۲۰۲۲ and that home births, suspended since ۲۰۲۵, will resume in January.
A senior NHS leader recently warned that up to ۲۰ full-scale, consultant-led maternity units at acute hospitals in England may have to close in order to keep women and babies safe.
There are fears that the birth centres at the Queen Elizabeth hospital in King’s Lynn and James Paget hospital in Great Yarmouth could also shut after NHS bosses in Norfolk last week proposed closing their maternity units and instead centralising care for the county at the Norfolk and Norwich University hospital in Norwich.
The maternity unit at North Devon district hospital in Barnstaple has been closed for months, including its home birth service, due to lack of staff.
Hannah Leonard, the chief policy officer and deputy chief midwife at the Royal College of Midwives, said: “Women have the right to choose where they give birth, but that choice is being eroded. The evidence shows that for some women choosing to give birth in a birth centre or at home improves outcomes and experience for the woman and her baby.”
Yvette Cooper, the health secretary, is due to publish an action plan to address the crisis in maternity and neonatal care in England before Christmas.
The Department of Health and Social Care did not respond directly to the closures. A spokesperson said: “Every woman and baby deserves safe, compassionate maternity and neonatal care and the health secretary has made it a personal priority to improve standards across the board. Strengthening the workforce is central to that goal and there are now a record number of midwives working in the NHS, with over ۶۰۰ added in the past year.”
